With the completion of the acquisition of Tele Atlas, 2008 was a year of great strategic importance. It was a year in which we made good progress towards our goal of becoming a broadly based navigation solutions and digital map company offering car navigation solutions across different platforms.

2008 was also a year in which the macro economy deteriorated, affecting the market environment, especially towards the end of the year. Nonetheless we sold more portable navigation devices (PNDs) than ever before, in fact a TomTom portable navigation device was manufactured every 2.6 seconds, and 40% of TomTom PNDs ever created were built in 2008.

TomTom was not immune from the deterioration of the macro environment. This is shown in our revenue which declined 10% on a pro-forma basis to €1.7 billion. Despite the difficult market conditions we continued to be a highly cash generative company with net cash flow from operating activities of €354 million.

Expanding community involvement
We continued to grow our community and to involve our customers in improving the quality of our maps and routing. The feedback that we receive from our customer base continued to grow exponentially. We ended the year with more than ten million registered TomTom HOME users. Since the launch of Map Share™ in late 2007, we have received over five million map improvement reports from our customers. On top of this, our community shared over half a trillion location specific speed measurements with us. All of this feedback helps us to offer our customers the best maps and routing available.

Get connected
Connected navigation allows us to provide our customers with relevant real-time information at the moment they need it. In October we launched our new GO LIVE Series in five European countries, delivering a bundle of connected services, like HD Traffic™, Local Search with Google and weather information, to our customers. We were able to make our real-time traffic service available to 50% of our European customer base by the end of 2008. In 2009 we will continue the roll out of LIVE Services in other European countries and the US. We will continue to add relevant information to our services package during 2009.

A broader Group
We introduced a new organisational structure with four customer-facing business units that can tap the wealth of knowledge and experience that has been collected together in the Group’s shared development centres. The four business units in turn can focus on the specific requirements of the customer groups they are targeting.

In the shared development centres we have brought together the core competencies of the Group: digital mapping, routing and guidance services. The strength of the combination of these three competencies started to become visible in 2008. The first maps that incorporate the feedback from our community were introduced in the fourth quarter by Tele Atlas. We have also combined our speed profile database with our map database, making Tele Atlas’ offering much richer.

Ready for the future
What we achieved last year was done in a toughening economic climate – testimony to the hard work and excellence of our employees and the quality of our solutions. We offer navigation which helps drivers to reduce stress, travel safely and save both time and money.

We continue to increase our presence in existing markets while moving into new ones, both through delivering our navigation solutions across new platforms and by expanding into new territories.

I would like to thank all employees for going the extra mile to deliver so much in a difficult year. The decisions we have made and the priorities we are focusing on will make us a stronger, healthier company. I thank our suppliers for working with us in the development of our products and services and for their flexibility in unpredictable times. Last but not least I thank our customers for the trust they continue to have in the quality of our products and services.

We are making good progress in implementing our strategy. We are well placed to consolidate our leading position and to grow our solutions offering, allowing drivers to enjoy a TomTom mapping and navigation experience no matter which platform they choose to use. Our future is a connected one – both within the Group and with our customers and partners. Together we will improve the lives of people on the move by leveraging our vast combined knowledge in digital mapping, routing and guidance.
Our achievements put us in a prime position to bring the superior navigation experience that we are renowned for to broader audiences.		  
     
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  Harold Goddijn
Chief Executive Officer, TomTom NV